1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to de-lamination of two pieces of media which have been laminated together such as by the use of heat and/or pressure, and more particularly to the use of manually-operable means for guiding one of the two pieces about a path to peel apart the lamination.
2. Background Art
The KODAK Color Proofing Laminator is used to bond lamination sheets to receiver stock as a part of a color proofing system. The lamination sheets include a carrier and a layer of material to be applied to the receiver stock, which, in the case of Kodak Color Proofing Laminator, is a color donor. A lamination sheet is laid upon the receiver stock with the color donor side sandwiched between the carrier and the receiver stock.
As shown in FIG. 1, the leading edge of the lamination sheet and receiver stock sandwich 10 is fed into a laminator 12, and the sandwich passes completely through the nip of a pair of heated rollers, not shown. The laminated sandwich sits on an exit table 14 undisturbed until the trailing edge is cool to the touch, whereupon the top-most carrier can be peeled away from receiver stock and from the transferred color donor. Further details of this type of lamination/de-lamination system can be found in commonly-assigned, U.S. Pat. No. 5,203,942, which issued to B. DeCook et al. on Apr. 20, 1993.
While the above-described KODAK Color Proofing Laminator works well for materials that require cold peeling, there are other materials that require peeling the carrier from the receiver stock while the sandwich is hot to prevent bonding between the carrier and the receiver stock. Because of the requirement to peel the media while it is still hot, and because of the fairly small window of time during which peeling may be effected without the risk of donor pick-off (if the sandwich is too hot) or bonding of the carrier to the receiver stock (if the sandwich is too cool), there is a need for an apparatus and method for peeling the sandwich apart at the appropriate time after lamination.
In so-called "hot peel" laminators, an operator must stand by the laminator to effect delamination peel as the media emerges from the laminator. Thus, the operator's time is inefficiently used, as he or she cannot perform other duties for the entire duration of the emergence of the media.
Automatic de-laminators have been proposed to overcome this problem. Commonly assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No.08/349,632, entitled DE-LAMINATOR APPARATUS AND METHOD WITH LEADER DIVERTER, filed concurrently herewith in the names of Kerr et al. discloses a system for automatically peeling the sandwich apart at the appropriate time after lamination. A pair of driven nip rollers receive a de-lamination leader therebetween as the sandwich emerges from the fuser to tension the carrier portion of the lamination sheet, thereby breaking the bond between the carrier and the receiver stock. Such automatic de-lamination apparatus is expensive, and there is still a need for manual de-laminators that do not require the full attention of the operator during the entire duration of the emergence of the media from the laminator but which are not as expensive as automatic de-laminators.